


Catra

by Geckinator3000



Series: Somewhere In the Middle: She-Ra Character studies [3]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Catra Has Issues (She-Ra), F/F, Healing, Literally a cat, Magic, Never thought I'd stan Catra but here we are, Past Abuse, Self-Discovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26478373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geckinator3000/pseuds/Geckinator3000
Summary: It's two years on from the Battle for Etheria and Catra's life is about to get....interesting. Just in case it wasn't, ya know, already interesting enough.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Melog (She-Ra), Catra & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)
Series: Somewhere In the Middle: She-Ra Character studies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907107
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	1. Breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a series of startling events, Catra makes a life-changing discovery about herself.

The attacks had started two months ago, out of nowhere, and they left her breathless.

She'd been wrestling Adora in one of Brightmoon's many lounges in front of a crackling fire, with Bow and Glimmer cheering them on.

"Go for the legs!" Bow yelled as Catra sprang, laughing, to sweep Adora quite literally off her feet. But Adora had sidestepped, and Catra had crashed unceremoniously to the floor before neatly rolling back up onto her feet and spinning around in the blink of an eye, as though no such graceless act had ever occurred.  
"You've been paying attention during our sparring lessons, haven't you? You're finally learning not to be so clumsy!" she teased.

"Oh, thank you Catra. I thought perhaps you'd been paying attention to me, and learning to be MORE clumsy!" Adora taunted, with one eyebrow raised.  
"Ooooh, how do you like that, Catra?" commented Glimmer, waving her tiny "Team Adora" flag.

Catra smirked. "Well, I've been going easy on ya so far. This time, you'd better be fast on your -" and here Adora had lunged forward, ready to strike, but Catra was three feet off the ground by the time Adora reached where she had been, pivoting effortlessly through the air as though an evasive backflip was the easiest way to avoid a strike.

She landed on her feet, of course, already prepared for the next move, heart pounding and grinning from ear to ear, and had gone to spring forward again when a wave of nausea and spine-tingling pain had hit. She staggered and fell, and Adora hung back for half a second, hesitant. This kind of trick, feigning injury, was something Catra had pulled before but no...

She was gasping, convulsing like a fish out of water with her eyes as wide as saucers and the surface of her skin was...flickering? The instant Adora had processed this, she found herself at Catra's side along with Bow, Glimmer and Melog.  
"Back offff g-g-guys I'm fine!" Catra stammered crossly, in her usual attempt to avoid showing any weakness whatsoever despite all evidence to the contrary. She gasped again and cried out in pain, her vision blurring, and every inch of her body burning. Dimly, she could hear Glimmer shouting, "Catra, Catra, what's happening?" and she could see Adora's blue eyes full of fear....and then her own eyes had rolled back in her head and she'd passed out.

***

Twenty minutes later, she came to some kind of consciousness in She-Ra's arms to find Angella's hand pressed gently against her forehead.  
"I can't heal her!" She-Ra had cried. "It's like there's nothing...wrong. Nothing to heal, just this feeling like....uncontrolled energy."  
"You're right. Catra is radiating energy, right from her core, and if I'm not mistaken, I think it's magic."  
Catra fainted again.

***

She'd awoken in her own bed hours later, feeling perfectly fine, and against the wishes of everyone in general, had brushed the event off as some kind of freak occurrence.

But the next day, she had another attack, and then two more the day after, six the day after that, and each stronger than the last. They seemed to happen whenever she got excited, or especially when she was in some kind of fight.

  
By the end of the week, Adora had had enough and dragged her off to Mystacor for examination. "They're experts in magic; they'll know what to do!" she'd said, with considerable bravado.  
But they didn't know either.

"The most we can tell," Castaspella had said, "is that it's like her body is trying to undergo some kind of magical transformation, but she can't quite do it yet."  
"Why? And what kind of transformation?" Adora demanded. Her eyes were red and tired. She hadn't slept much recently.  
"Again, we can't figure that out yet. But every time she has another attack, the magic levels given off by her body are raised a little more. Perhaps they'll reach some kind of critical level, and then she'll transform."  
"Can we stop it?"  
"No. Inhibiting magical energy is very dangerous. It's safest for her to complete whatever process is going on."

  
"Okay then, if we can't beat it....can we accelerate the progress?"

***

That question had landed them in Dryl, and Catra in a net of sensory wires and probes and purple hair. She hated Entrapta's examinations, but at this point, the attacks were so becoming frequent and painful that she was willing to put up with it.

"Hmmm, fascinating!" exclaimed Entrapta. "Hordak, can you pass me that meter...the magion-level reader...now, where did I last leave it?"  
"I put it away. It is in Cabinet 37A, second drawer down," said Hordak, retrieving the meter and passing it to her.

"Wow, that's very organised of you! But where's the fun in knowing exactly where something is? I LIKE frantically rummaging through piles of scientific equipment sometimes. Gives me a sense of satisfaction when I find the thing I need."  
"You have an allocated pile of bot parts and assorted spanners for the purpose of rummaging, located between Cabinets 27 and 28," Hordak replied, raising one eyebrow.  
"Aw, thanks honey but you're no fun sometimes." Entrapta sighed, calibrating the meter on a few First One's crystals.  
"I am THE MOST fun, but at this present moment, fun is not of the utmost priority. Catra is our friend, and we are attempting to relieve her distress." Hordak answered, stretching his enormous wings lazily and swishing his tail.

"Ok, can you two stop your cute old married couple fight and hurry up?" Catra growled as Entrapta secured the meter probes to her forehead. It beeped almost immediately.

"Huh, there's definitely magic coming from you, and the level is rising all the time."

The beeping grew rapidly louder and faster. "What does that mean?" asked Adora, holding Catra's hand so tightly she nearly crushed it.

"I'm guessing that....ah, there we are. The threshold has been passed." Entrapta replied, coiling her hair around Catra's body as she began to convulse, to protect her.  
"Magic levels rising....rising....exponentially rising...and! Then they drop off suddenly." Catra's body relaxed again and she sighed with relief. "Now that's really interesting. I'll just take a quick blood sample-"

"Wait, no!" Catra cried, but Hordak had already taken the sample while she was distracted by Entrapta.  
"I'd swat you if I wasn't so tangled up in hair!" she huffed at him, claws bared.  
"My apologies. I am trying to assist you, Catra." he replied, laying a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder.  
She scowled. She still wasn't used to seeing something like compassion on his face.

"And we're all done, for now!" chirped Entrapta, carefully putting Catra down and simultaneously removing what seemed like an impossible number of wires from around her with a thousand pseudo-limbs of her ever-restless hair. Catra flopped onto the floor and stretched out, wriggled, shook herself to make sure there were no stray wires still attached, and got back to her feet.

Meanwhile, Entrapta bounced off across the vast laboratory with the blood sample Hordak had taken, to a machine with far too many buttons. She placed the vial in a slot, pressed sixteen buttons, and moments later, a pot of coffee popped out of another slot, followed five minutes later by the vial from another slot and a flashing message on a tiny screen above it.  
"Ah, there we are!" said Entrapta, tipping the entire pot of coffee down her throat with reckless abandon. She scribbled a few notes in a little book and bounced back over to show them to Hordak.  
"Curious. These magion levels are very close to what we would expect from a Princess." he remarked.  
"I am NOT a Princess!" Catra yelped.  
"What's magion?" Adora questioned.

"Mrr?" said Melog.

"It is the primary conductor of magical energy. Magion is present in many things, both organic and inorganic, living and non-living, and permits the flow of magic from one place or state to another."  
Catra stared. "It's what to what now to the where?"

"Ok." Entrapta sighed. "You know how electricity works, right?"  
"Yeah, kinda? It's those little...charged thingies in wires....moving."  
"Approximately. What matters is that it's a bunch of electrons flowing from one place to another, and that flow is what creates an electrical current. Elements that conduct electricity, like some metals, allow this flow of electrons. Magion works in a similar kind of way, but it's able to pull magic from the surrounding environment.... through some kind of process I haven't figured out yet.... and direct it to some other place. Basically, it can be used to channel or store magic."  
"Riiight. And this relates to me, how exactly?"  
"You have magion in your blood, Catra. Like any magical being on Etheria, this allows you to use magic. For some reason, you've recently accumulated enough magic to start whatever kind of transformation your body is meant to go through when you're in combat."

"Okay, ok, ok, let's take a break!" Adora had said, noticing the glazed look on Catra's face. "This is...a lot to take in at once."  
"Of course. Would caffeine be of use in this time of distress?" Hordak asked.  
"Yeah, please. Coffee. Black, strong, with two sugars and a shot of brandy." said Catra, and sank to the floor.

"What's next?" she said, five minutes later, slamming the empty mug down.  
"Do you want us to attempt to help you complete the transformation?" Hordak asked, licking milk froth from his own coffee off one of his fangs.  
"Catra that's-"  
"Dangerous? Yeah, I know, Adora. But so is allowing whatever's going on to continue uncompleted."  
"But we could wait to let the magic levels rise high enough, naturally!" Adora had protested.  
"Neither of us has slept normally in two weeks! I'm exhausted, and so are you. If they can come up with some kind of plan to figure out what the hell is going on with me, I'm all in."  
"Alright. But where are we gonna get more magic to give you?"

Entrapta had grinned maniacally at that question, and from somewhere behind her, the ten-thousand faceted crystal surface of the Amplifier glinted.

***

And so, ten minutes later, She-Ra found herself standing with her sword pointed determinedly into the crystalline innards of a machine that, after Entrapta and Hordak had made a few deft and hasty modifications, would fire a beam of magic straight into her best friend's heart. She'd squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe steadily, reminding herself of all the seemingly impossible things she'd done before.

Nope. Not helping.  
She opened her eyes and stared hopelessly at Catra, who smiled gently.  
"Hey, Adora. It's alright. You can do this. I know you can."

When she'd finally aimed and fired, eyes half shut and teeth gritted with fear, the magic had lifted Catra right off her feet. It pulsed through her limbs from her head to her tail, and she began to grow. She gained three feet in height in a moment, her spine elongating and her shoulders widening as she stooped forward onto all fours. Clawed hands and feet became massive paws. Her face distorted and her jaws gaped open wide to expose her rapidly growing teeth. Seconds later, she'd snapped those jaws shut and shaken herself, from her maned head to her lashing tail, flexed her shoulders a little, and then threw her head back and roared.

Melog had flattened themselves to the floor in response to the thunderous noise, tail bristling but eyes wide with fascination.

"Ca...Catra?" She-Ra asked tentatively, extending one hand cautiously towards what was undeniably an enormous cat. It was big. Bigger than a spotted forest lion, bigger than an alpine rock-puma, bigger than any feline creature ever seen on the face of Etheria.  
It - or rather, she - had blinked her heterochromatic eyes and grinned.  
"Hey, Adora." said Cat-Catra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an idea I've had for a while and finally started writing down. It'll take a few chapters to explain why Catra is magic, and why this wasn't noticed earlier.  
> Anyway, hope you like it so far!  
> PS I reckon Catra takes her coffee with brandy, the way I do with mine, which is what my grandfather taught me to do when I'm really tired. He takes about 2 shots of brandy in his, but then again he's twice my size. Perhaps it's not the best combination, but it certainly puts some fire in my veins!


	2. A Change of Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catra goes on a journey of self-discovery and learns some good things and some decidedly less good things. 
> 
> Trigger warning: implied child abuse, I guess?

"Come on Catra! You can do this! Climb!"

Catra pinned her ears back in annoyance but dug her claws in and pushed her aching body a little harder as she scaled the tree. She wasn't used to being this big, and the lack of opposable thumbs was really starting to irritate her.

"Now look out on your left, I'm coming after you!"

She leaped onwards, from branch to branch, narrowly avoiding a blast of magic from She-Ra's sword. Splinters and leaves flew.

"Adora, you're not supposed to be damaging the trees! I thought She-Ra was meant to PROTECT Etheria!" Catra laughed as she climbed. Thank goodness she could still talk. This would be unbearable if her beast-form had no ability to vocalise her displeasure.

"And you're supposed to be mastering your new powers, not giving me cheek!" She-Ra replied, sending another scorching blast of magic flying just a little too close to Catra's tail.  
"Alright, alright, calm down already! I've only been doing this for two weeks-" she jumped to another branch, scrabbling a little on the landing, "and my centre of gravity is completely different! I'm bigger! I weigh more! I have four legs! Give me a break!"  
"Hah, what was it you said a few days ago? Breaks are for quitters?"

Catra huffed as she reached the topmost branch that would bear her weight, which was now close to a tonne, and whirled around to meet her friend with a display of flashing teeth.  
"Well, maybe I am a quitter! Maybe I'm just not cut out for this hero thing!" she hissed, defensively.

She-Ra faltered. "But you already ARE a hero, Catra, and heroes don't quit! Keep pushing yourself: you're almost there and you can't afford to give up now!"  
Catra switched her tail irritably. "Actually, Adora, I can! One of the fun things about not being at war is that I CAN actually call it a day for now. It's not urgent anymore! We have time!"  
"But I-"  
"I don't have to be a hero like you! I don't need, or want, to be like She-Ra!"

"I don't want you to- oh, never mind!" Shoulders slumping, She-Ra detransformed and sat down on the branch next to the mega-cat. After a moment, she spoke up again. "I'm sorry Catra, and you're right. The war is over and it has been for years. I guess I still get twitchy and scared, thinking about all the what-ifs. I'll go easier on your next training session, I promise."

Catra nudged her with her nose, affectionately. "Thanks, Adora, but I've been thinking that maybe we should take a break on the training for a few weeks."  
"Sure, okay, but what will we do?"  
"We're going to have a- what's that word Glimmer uses for time off? Holiday? Yeah. A holiday. Separately."

Adora tried but failed to hide the shock and hurt in her voice. "You're just going off on your own? But Catra-"  
"I'll be fine. I'll take Melog with me. Adora, I just need some time on my own to figure things out. This is a pretty big change for me, you know." She flexed one massive paw by way of demonstration, claws sheathing and unsheathing like daggers."I've gotta learn to be my own type of Cat."

"Ok. Sure, if that's what you need. I'm sorry that I made you feel like I wanted you to be like me." Adora answered quietly, staring at her toes as she swung her legs over empty space.  
"Hey. It's no big deal. I know you were only trying to do what makes you feel better - training obsessively - because you thought it would help me. So, we've learned something: that approach doesn't always work for me. That's supposed to be a good thing, right? Learning?"

Adora hugged her friend's enormous foreleg, and buried her face in the soft tawny fur. "Sure thing, Catra." she smiled, a little tiredly. In her arms, Catra shrank as she detransformed, until Adora could wrap her arms around her entire body. She seemed so small, now, resting her chin on Adora's shoulder as she embraced her back.  
Adora had always wanted to protect Catra, to help her in every way she could, but perhaps there were some things she had to work out for herself.

***

Two days later, Catra found herself perched in her old favourite spot: right at the highest point of the former Fright Zone, with one arm around Melog. In the old days, she mused to herself, Adora would usually have come to find her, and they'd have sat and talked up here for hours sometimes. Hordak would have been a few floors below them, lurking in his sanctum and working on some hideous new weapon. All around them had ground the ceaseless machinations of war; the constant comings and goings of troops and tanks and supplies, the stern voice of the drill sergeants shouting at some poor cadet (usually Kyle), and the dire red glow of bombs going off in the distance as the Horde flattened yet another village.

Now, Scorpia reigned as Queen over this kingdom. The machines of war had been reassembled into houses for former soldiers, and fields of wheat and flowers, grown under Perfuma's watchful eye, spread like tapestries in every direction. Instead of smoke and skimmers, the skies were filled with Fulbrights - Horde Prime's former clones - wheeling gracefully through the air with sweeping strokes of their enormous, brightly-colored wings. Everything had changed. Just everything.

A familiar, worried voice broke her train of thought: Scorpia, calling from somewhere below her. "Hey, Catra! You alright up there? Do you and Melog want some tea?"

Catra smiled a little and scrambled down to meet her. "I'm fine, just doing some thinking. And yes, I would love some tea, thank you. Melog says they really love the herbal blend you made us yesterday!"  
She felt a twinge of guilt as she watched Scorpia's eyes widen when she used the words "thank you" for the third time that day. Scorpia's exoskeleton might be tough, but Catra had done more than her fair share of damage to her soft heart in the past, and she was determined to make it up to her.

"Great! That's, uh, fantastic, that you're doing some thinking! I do that a lot myself these days." Scorpia replied, fidgeting with her claws. "May I ask what you were thinking about, if you're um, comfortable talking about it?" she added, hurriedly.  
"Yeah, I was just wondering, you know...this didn't all happen overnight? All this change, I mean?" Catra said, gesturing to the vegetation-clad buildings around them, and the cheerful citizens going about their business.  
"No, absolutely not! The clones -I mean the Fulbrights- really helped speed up the rebuilding process, but even they couldn't do it in a day."

"Then why did I gain the ability to turn into a giant cat so quickly? I just can't figure it out! It doesn't make any sense!" Catra scuffed one clawed foot on the grass in frustration. "Until three weeks ago, I'd never used magic in my life, and then all of a sudden I find out it's apparently an inherent ability and it's literally in my blood! Melog, don't look at me like that: I know you told me you could sense magic in me when you met me and you being smug about it is not helping right now!"

Scorpia nodded. "Huh, I kinda know how you feel. I spent years thinking I couldn't connect with the Black Garnet, and then boom! Magic electricity powers! Who knew, right?"  
"Hordak, because he promised your mom he'd take care of you, and he didn't want you getting yourself killed. Shadow Weaver too, probably. That bitch was a real parasite for power. She figured out how to use the energy from the Black Garnet for herself-" Catra's voice dropped into a growl as she inadvertently transformed, mid-rage, "and spent years wasting the power you should have had on bullying and torturing other people!"

Scorpia laid one claw on her friend's massive shoulder and looked at the furrows Catra's claws had carved in the earth. "I'm so sorry she made your childhood miserable, Catra. I'm so sad that she made you feel powerless. But now-"  
She paused suddenly, her eyes going wide. "Oh shit." she said, in a very small, tight voice.  
"What?" said Catra, in alarm. She'd never heard Scorpia swear before.

"Oh SHIT!" Scorpia spun on one heel and raced off, with Catra bounding behind her.  
"WHAT?" demanded Catra again, as they ran.  
"I have a theory, but I really need to check my facts and there's only one person I can think of who'd know the answer!"  
"Who?"  
"Imp!"

***

Catra could swear Imp had grown since she saw him last. He now almost reached her shoulder and was showing no sign of stopping any time soon.

Scorpia whispered something in his ear, and his yellow eyes widened in alarm. Turning back to Rogelio, he signed something rapidly and frowned. Rogelio though for a moment before he signed back, his movements slow and almost hesitant. Imp nodded, then looked to Kyle and Lonnie for reassurance. They conferred for a little while, then presently, Lonnie stepped forward.

"Catra, Imp says he does remember something that might explain your lost powers. I'll interpret for him, but he says-" she glanced down at him, "You might want to be sitting down."  
Catra swallowed, the taste of bile rising bitter and acrid in her throat. "Ok," she said and sat down.

Imp took a deep breath, and began to sign, very precisely, with pauses for Lonnie to interpret.

"He says that one day, many years ago, he saw Shadow Weaver slip into your bunkroom in the middle of the night, and when she came out, she was almost....sorry, can you sign that again? Glowing? Yes. Glowing. Like, with power. So, the next night, he tried to follow her, but she heard him and chased him off. He had to try again and again before he eventually managed to slip into the room and hide in a cupboard before everyone went to bed. He saw her come in and put one hand on your shoulder, while you were sleeping, and she was mouthing the words to something like....like a spell he says, but he didn't recognise any words. And then she'd leave again, and the next night she'd do the same thing. She tried to do it to Adora, a few times, and failed."

Catra bit her lip so hard it almost bled to keep herself from throwing up. She glanced up, and nodded at Imp to continue.

"Imp tried to tell Hordak what was happening, but because Shadow Weaver never made any sound he could mimic, he could never get the message across. Still, Hordak understood that there was something bad -something very evil- about Shadow Weaver, and he never trusted her after that. Eventually, she must have depleted the magic stored in your body to such an extent that it took years for it to build up again."

"So that's why he replaced her with me," Catra mumbled. "Figures. I kinda thought it was weird, him replacing an experienced military commander with someone so much younger, but he must have figured out she was doing something to me and Adora."

"Yeah." Scorpia nodded. "My theory, and Imp's, is that Shadow Weaver could sense the magical energy coming from you two and wanted to use it for herself. That's why she hated you so much and loved Adora. She'd sucked you dry, so you were useless to her, but Adora still had a power she could exploit if only she could figure out how to access it."

"Enough was never enough for her. Yeah, that makes sense. And I saw her using Glimmer's power, once, too. It made her weaker, pretty fast....no wonder I felt so awful when I was around her as a kid. I hated her, and she knew why. I still hate her." Catra's head was spinning and every nerve in her body felt like it was twitching. "And that's why she swapped sides...there was She-Ra, and all of Brightmoon's magic..." Her eyes glazed over and dimly, she was aware of her heart rate picking up.  
"Catra? Are you alright? Is there anything we can do for you?"  
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she murmured, getting up, "I just need to go outside and get some air-"

She bolted for the door, and once she was through it, she just kept running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof. Ouch. I've had this idea clattering around in my head for a while now. I couldn't understand why Shadow Weaver hated Catra so much but had taken her on as her ward. Her motives are never particularly well explained, and she's a fairly mysterious character, aside from one thing: we all know she's a power-hungry parasite. She could sense the power in Adora even when she was a baby, and likely took her on because of that, so it made sense that perhaps the same was true for Catra.   
> So, I kinda took that idea and ran with it. I want Catra to start coming into her own in this story and developing her as an individual character with her own abilities and destiny that are separate from her relationship with Adora. 
> 
> There's still another chapter or so to go, I think.  
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Wanderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panicked and confused by Imp's revelations about Shadow Weaver, Catra heads for the hills.  
> (Catra is going feral for a while. As a treat. It's about time she did!)

Day faded into night and Catra was still running. Well, jogging, if it could be called that, if giant cats could jog.

Somewhere between the Scorpion Kingdom and wherever the hell she was now, she'd transformed, in her panic, into her cat form. It was the one thing making her feel better now. 

At least, like this, fewer people would recognize her, and her near one-tonne bodyweight of muscles, fur, teeth and sinew was keeping her warm as the heat of daylight faded and the cold stars rose. At least she'd got the better of Shadow Weaver, in the end. At least she had her own kind of magic, now, which had been stolen from her for so long she'd forgotten it had been hers. 

F**k you, Shadow Weaver. F**k you. 

***

A short distance behind her, Melog trotted with a thermos of tea held firmly in their jaws. They'd grabbed it, with an apologetic glance toward Scorpia, hours earlier when Catra had dashed out of the Scorpion Kingdom.  
Scorpia had nodded, understanding immediately. "Go." she'd said, softly, "and take good care of her."

Catra had been in no mood for talking when Melog had caught up, so they'd dropped back a little way to give her some space. Poor thing, thought Melog, having her magic forcibly drained from her for all those years. Their fur bristled with indignation, and they had to suppress a growl. 

F**k Shadow Weaver.

***

Kilometres behind them, Scorpia had called into the darkness for so long that her voice was growing raspy. She wiped a worried tear from her eyes as her mother, Rachne, laid a comforting claw around her shoulders.  
"It's alright, my dear; you've done everything you can, and she's got Melog with her."

"Oh, I know she'll be physically ok; she's a real tough wildcat...but her heart was already so broken and now I went and told her something that made her feel even worse!" Scorpia sniffed.

"You still did the right thing. Remember, it wasn't you that caused the heartbreak, and we gave her the answer she was looking for. It might not have been the one she expected, or the one anyone would want for her, but it is the truth. Shadow Weaver is long dead, and Catra has started to reclaim her identity. That's what matters."

"Yeah, I guess so. I just wish I knew a way I could help her, or even where she's going!"

Rachne smiled knowingly. "I'll bet you my stinger she'd headed for the one place everyone on the run is drawn to: The Crimson Waste."

Scorpia's shoulders sagged in relief. "Thank goodness! Catra kicks ASS in the Crimson Waste." She brightened a little more as an idea occurred to her. "Hey, we have a friend there! Huntara! We could send her a message and tell her to keep an eye out for Catra. Between the three of them, Catra, Melog, and Huntara could take on anything!"

"Great plan. I'll send Noctus: he's our fastest night-flier."

***

Noctus took off minutes later, his immense wings beating hard at the air until he was all but invisible in the night sky with only the white markings on his face giving him away. Huntara was a good friend of his, and he almost always knew where to find her. 

He'd been a clone, once, but now he looked nothing like the miserable, brainwashed creature he'd been before. His already imposing eight-foot stature and twelve-foot wingspan was further added to by an enormous set of horns, curving back from his head like a pair of crescent moons. Behind him trailed a muscular, double-finned tail. His skin was now such a deep shade of blue, spattered with shimmering purples, that it was almost black; a far cry from his days of uniform white and green. 

Thinking of Horde Prime still made him shudder, and he flew a little faster as he recalled the terrible feeling of being used like nothing more than a vessel. He could imagine what Catra was feeling now: confusion, rage, fear and perhaps, as time wore by, grief.  
She had headed north-west, and at her current pace, she'd reach the Crimson Waste within two days. That was an impressive feat, but he could fly faster still, and he revelled in the rush of air and the freedom of flying.   
He hoped that one day, Catra found the same kind of peace he had. 

***

Several nights later, Huntara sat in silence beside her little campfire, and bit hungrily into some meat she'd roasted.   
Behind her, she thought she could hear the almost imperceptible sound of large, padded feet coming through the sand. Four of them, with a long tail dragging behind. A quadruped then, and one too hungry and tired to carry its tail off the ground. She'd been expecting it for a while, now, after Noctus's visit.   
She pushed another log onto the fire and turned the rest of the roasting desert-hog again so the juices ran down its sides, crackling and sizzling into the embers, and smiled just a little when she heard nothing in response. The creature behind her had stopped moving and was almost certainly drooling and considering its next move.

"Come on out, then. I know you're there and there's plenty to share, provided you don't bite me," she said, without even bothering to look behind her. Her knife in her belt and her close-combat fighting-spear by her side was all the assurance she needed.

"How do I know I can trust you?" said the voice from behind her, low and uncertain.

"I could ask the same of you, and yet here I am, offering you some of my food."

The cat padded into the light of the fire, blinking tiredly, its head hung low. It regarded Huntara suspiciously, one apex predator considering another. Both of them knew the risk of such a closely matched fight, and neither of them was willing to take it. That was exactly what Huntara was bargaining on, and after a moment, the cat sank wearily into the sand and stared into the fire. After a moment, another cat joined her, but this was the kind of cat not even Huntara could track. It was a creature of magic, and it didn't leave footprints unless it wanted to. It inclined its head politely, and sat down beside its larger companion.

Wordlessly, Huntara nodded back and got up to carve several large chunks of meat. She tossed them over, the two cats catching them neatly between their front paws and devouring them in minutes. Between the three of them, the roasted pig was gone in half an hour, picked right down to the bone.

"So," said the larger cat, after finishing her meticulous post-dinner grooming, "aren't you going to ask who we are or what I'm doing out here?"

Picking a piece of meat out of her sharpened teeth, Huntara answered, "I'm a big fan of not asking unnecessary questions. If you wanted to tell me who you were, you would have by now. All I need to know is that you won't try to kill me in my sleep. Think you can manage that?"

"Yeah, I'm not exactly in the mood for a fight right now anyway, and you look like you'd put up a decent one."

Huntara grinned. "Good. I'm not someone you want to pick a fight with. Well, even though I don't know your name and I've got a feeling you know mine, I'll introduce myself anyway. I'm Huntara, and I guess you could say I'm Queen of the Crimson Waste. Good to meet ya, Big Cat and Magic Cat."

"Nice to meet you too, Huntara. I'll tell you one thing about myself, though."

"What's that?"

Catra rolled onto her back and stared up at the stars; a billion, trillion pinpoints of light wheeling in the wide desert skies.  
"Honestly, I'm not really sure who I am anymore."

Hunatara nodded. "I know that feeling. Not easy to work it out, is it? My best guess is you're out looking for answers."

"More like I'm running from the answers I found. I don't really wanna talk about it right now."

"You don't have to tell me anything. Take all the time you need. Sleep well now, Big Cat and Magic Cat."

"Night." answered Catra, curling up in a ball with Melog sprawled on top of her. As she drifted off, she heard herself murmur, almost smugly, "Both of us are magic cats, now....."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun to write, tbh. I think hanging out in the desert with Huntara and Melog for a while could be really good for Catra. She needs a bit of time to work some things out, and it's really important that her identity doesn't revolve entirely around Adora and what happened to her in the past.   
> Noctus is inspired by a sable antelope. I've been wanting to write about him for a while, just cause I think he's neat. He's a former Horde clone, and now a citizen of the Scorpion kingdom. He's a civil engineer and has deep purple eyes, btw.


	4. I'm In the Desert and I'm a Cat With No Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catra jchillin in the Crimson Waste, in denial that the outside world exists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever felt like everything was too overwhelming, and you just wanted to run away and forget everything?  
> Yeah. That's the general Mood here.

By day, the sun burned its way across the cloudless sky on a steady path from east to west.  
By night, the stars wheeled overhead in their endless glittering dance, and the moons hung ever-watchful.

Catra and Huntara seldom spoke. They didn't need to, as the days blurred by, and they settled into a routine. Huntara still pretended that she didn't know who the colossal cat that travelled with her really was, and that suited Catra just fine.  
Each day they rose before dawn, to do the majority of the day's walking before the sun rose to its scorching apex at noon. Huntara had been patrolling the Wastes for years, and she knew that despite its inhospitable appearance, there were ways to survive there for those who knew how and those who could take the heat.

Water was the priority. Thankfully, Huntara had a reliable way of finding it: looking for quicksand.  
Unbeknownst to most, the Crimson Waste was transversed by a network of underground streams and rivers. Where they came near to the surface, quicksand formed, and if you were lucky, digging nearby would yield water.  
"It's a deadly nuisance to most people," Huntara had said to Catra, the first time she showed her and Melog how to dig for water, "but to us desert folk if you're paying attention it can be the difference between life and death."  
The water that welled up was usually muddy, but after boiling and straining it was quite drinkable, albeit with a slight dusty aftertaste.

Next on the list was food, and thankfully, where there was water, food was often not far away. Burrowing desert-eels, their eyes almost nonexistent, and their mouths fringed with barbels were the most common. They were venomous, of course, but if you grabbed them by the tail and cracked their skulls on a nearby rock quickly enough, you could usually avoid being bitten. Melog became quite skilled at diving into the sand after them and biting them just behind the head to immobilise them.

Catra, meanwhile, became a master at toppling potato cacti to get at their tuberous roots. She'd dig at their base with her gigantic paws, sending up a spray of sand behind her, and then lean hard against the trunk of the cactus to push it over. Her thick fur helped to protect her from the sharp spines, and Huntara had made her leather shoulder armour out of a few jackets they'd "confiscated" from various bandits too stupid or unfortunate to avoid them.  
The tubers, roasted in the embers of their fire until they were soft and fluffy, and doused liberally in roasted desert hog dripping, were, of course, the best part, but even the cacti themselves had their uses once Huntara had carved them up into manageable chunks. They tasted largely of nothing, but they were full of moisture and they were crunchy. Their spines made useful toothpicks.

True to her name, Huntara was an undeniably excellent hunter. She could track anything that left any trace of its presence and hit a hog dead in the chest with a spear from fifty feet away.  
Secretly, Catra was a little in awe of her.

***

It was only a little after dawn when they found the colossal marks near their camp: three sinuous trenches in the sand, two metres wide, and stretching off into the distance. Melog sniffed at one and drew back in alarm. 

Huntara frowned. "Sand Wraiths," she said and did not elaborate further.

"I'm assuming they're bad?" Catra asked, tentatively.

"No, actually. Sand Wraiths are a lot like me: they just want to be left in peace to do their own thing! They're scavengers, sifting the sand for scraps of this and that. The most trouble they usually cause is stealing food supplies they find near camps. That's why I've been keeping ours so close, weighed down with a few big rocks. They're naturally cautious, so if it's too hard to get, they won't bother you unless you deliberately piss them off. Usually."

Catra considered asking what would make something so big cautious, then decided she was better off not knowing. "If they're peaceful, then why are you frowning like that, and why are we following the tracks?"

"Because they're headed right for Scarlet Charlatan Camp, and by the looks of those indentations over there," she gestured towards some large, regularly spaced craters that Catra now recognised as footprints, "something even bigger is, too."

***

They arrived to find the camp on fire and half-torn down. Crowds of shrieking bandits tried in vain to retrieve their belongings from collapsed tents while dodging the titanic struggle taking place between the three Sand Wraiths and something that looked approximately like a very big fox with six eyes. They appeared to have found a cart loaded with some kind of food, and were busy hissing and snarling over who got what. The sand wraiths had tremendously long, muscular bodies and arrow-shaped, whiskery-muzzled snakelike heads. They flared the ruffs of orange and blue around their necks in a threat display and clacked their short curved tusks as they fought. Though they appeared to work as some kind of loose team, the foxlike creature was much larger, and its vicious teeth were apparently too sharp for them to risk getting too close for too long. It thrashed its three pink-striped tails behind it as it plunged in and out of the sand, pursuing one wraith and then another.

"Dune Shark," Huntara sighed heavily and started searching through her pack for something.

"Sorry, what? You call that thing a Dune SHARK?" said Catra, incredulously.

"Big ears stick out of the sand like shark fins during the day when the fox is resting. Well, usually resting. For a stash of food like that, it's worth getting out of bed in the hot sun!"

One sand wraith and the dune shark currently were engaged in a tug-of-war with the food cart. With a resounding crack, it broke into pieces, and food scattered everywhere. For a few brief moments, all four beasts ceased their squabbling as they hurried to snuffle up whatever they could get.

"Wait for it," said Huntara, grimly, as she busily coiled ropes.

One particularly foolhardy bandit - a lizard, as far as Catra could tell - darted across the sand toward a cask of what was almost undoubtedly alcohol while the beasts were distracted. He hefted it up onto his shoulder, then looked up into the dinner-plate-sized eye of what was clearly a no-longer-distracted sand wraith. It growled. The bandit stood his ground and drew his pistol. The sand wraith loomed closer, its neck ruff expanding like a sail, and then reared back at the gunshot crack.

All hell broke loose.

"For the THIRD f**king time this YEAR!" Huntara hissed under her breath and began to jog forward, towards the chaotic scene. 

A single bullet did very little to a sand wraith, other than enrage it. The screaming bandit was pursued through no less than six tents in the space of thirty seconds, all of them reduced to flapping piles of cloth and poles wrapped around the wraith's body as it barreled after him. He did not drop the cask, somehow, which was a stupid decision. Soon all three wraiths were after him, and after a few moments of contemplation, the Dune Shark joined in, too.

"Try and create some kind of distraction!" yelled Huntara to Catra and Melog as they ran. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we need to save that idiot from his own stupidity, or he's gonna be lunch!"

Catra nodded and felt a growl beginning deep within her chest. It built and broke out like thunder as she roared, jaws open wide to reveal rows of flashing teeth.

Everything stopped. All eyes turned to her.

The Dune Shark flicked its ears back, and said, low, "Can't you see we're busy here little cat?"

Catra gaped.

***

Half an hour after discovering that she could, in fact, magically converse fluently with Etherian megafauna, Catra struck a deal. 

In exchange for daily snacks, the Sand Wraiths agreed to help the bandits find water. The Dune Shark was a little harder to negotiate with, but she had cubs to feed. After some bargaining, she reluctantly agreed to leave the bandits food supplies alone, and not fight with the Sand Wraiths, if they would help her build a trap for desert hogs so she didn't have to roam so far from her den. The bandits promised not to use their weapons against them anymore, and also to keep the noise down and their language polite when they were in earshot of the Dune Shark's cubs.

"Little foxes have big ears," she said, by way of a friendly joke, and after Catra had translated it for them, the bandits laughed, albeit a little nervously. 

The Sand Wraiths introduced themselves, one by one, as Wim, Bet and Teth, and the Dune Shark's name translated to something like Two-Moons-On-The-Sand. Catra could see why, as the sun set and her eyes glowed silvery in the darkness. Her cubs, all four of them the size of smallish elephants, came to join her and sat politely on the sand with their fur neatly groomed and their chests puffed out. Melog entertained them tremendously by disappearing, and reappearing again ten metres away as they sniffed around the empty air, attempting to find the suddenly invisible cat. 

They all ate together that night, and between them, they managed to get the camp back into some kind of order. Huntara managed to restrain herself from scowling too much at the bandit who had provoked the majority of the damage. To his credit, he looked thoroughly ashamed of himself and went to apologise to Wim, the wraith he had shot. Wim assured him that the bullet would hardly leave a mark, which the bandit found both reassuring and terrifying in equal measure. 

As they lay staring up at the stars, Huntara cleared her throat. "I don't often say this, but I have to admit: that was amazing, Big Cat."

"Thank you," said Catra, quietly. "I didn't know that there were such big creatures in the desert, or that I could talk to them."

"They've only been around for the last few years. Since your Adora- I mean, She-Ra healed Etheria, a whole lot of creatures thought to be extinct or in hiding have reappeared. It's nice in some ways, but it's a real problem when it comes to them coexisting with Etherian settlements who've never seen anything like them before."

"Huh," remarked Catra, and closed her eyes. Hearing Adora's name stung in so many different ways. She knew, at some level, that Huntara knew perfectly well who she was, and what she was running from, but she didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about how much she missed Adora, or that Adora might be missing her, or what she might say about all of this.

Catra just wanted to get as far away from herself, from her own identity, from the pain of her past life, as she could. She hadn't detransformed from her beast form in weeks. It felt right, somehow, and this body didn't bear scars from-

-no, she couldn't even think about that name.

Brushing the thought from her mind with a grimace, Catra rolled onto her side, curled around Melog, and tried to sleep.


End file.
